July 23, 2009

A room, space, corner or area of a dwelling that is specifically reserved for a male person to be in a solitary condition, away from the rest of the household in order to work, play, involve himself in certain hobbies, activities without interuption. This area is usually decorated by the male that uses it without interferance from any female influence.

Definition #2 is similar. But watch out for Definitions #3 and 4, which have been strongly disapproved of by Urban Dictionary voters.

So do you have a man cave? Tell us about it. And I mean that in the Definition #1/2 sense. I know you've got one in the Definitions #3/4 sense, and you probably haven't got anything entertaining to say about it (unless you are Titus).

IN THE COMMENTS: Howard said:

Another depressing example of the continued sissification of America. Giving a special cute name to normal quiet behavior and/or a garage screams of estrogen.

If you have a garage band in that garage, you can call it Screams of Estrogen. And write a song called "Normal Quiet Behavior."

67 comments:

A man cave does not need to be a physical place. It can be a detached mental state shutting out the world. When you ladies cannot get a response out of your man apart from a grunt, your man is in a mental man cave shutting you out.

There is even a show on Do It Yourself channel on building man caves. Yes definition number 1 is the correct one. Healing, while nursing fermented and/or distilled liquids made of grain and smoking cigars, are what you do in your man cave.

I do not have one. I still have to finish upgrading the kitchen. But I do dream of one.

My man cave is in my basement. It does have some things that belong to the "Lady of the house", but otherwise it is my mancave. Has my tools, a work-bench, my fly-fishing gear, my toy train setup, my beloved lounge chair, pool table, TV/DVD/stereo to watch Michigan football games, espresso geek equipment. The walls are decorated with various B&W prints of photos I took from the days when I was trying to become the next Ansel Adams, Michigan Wolverine football and track heroes etc. The Lady of the house does come down to visit, ocassionaly, especially when she wants me to make her and her friends some good coffee or espresso. :)We have no kids, (I was rendered sterile by cancer treatments),so, the basement is MY DOMAIN!!!!

When relative's kids visit, they love hanging out and playing in my ManCave!! :)

The firs is very nearly a cave. It is the entrance alcove, roughly 10 x 10 from the backyard into the finished part of the basement. When we had children, I declared it closed off and promptly sealed off this little space from prying fingers. It houses my three computers, gimbled Matrix-style complete with Matrix-esque screen savers, book shelves for the overflow books that won't fit in the living room, phone/printer, etc. The only thing I'm missing is a small fridge :) This space also doubles as an office when I'm working from home.

The second man cave is the two-car garage that I've turned into my woodshop. My wife originally said she would be parking in there year-round, but we compromised. I don't even try to have any input on the rest of the house (minus my computer cave) and she gave up the garage. I've got all the power tools and wood in there, along with a decent sound system/tv and fourth computer. All the artwork from my bachelor days found it's way down there as well.

I've got a brass-framed, theater-sized print for the Danial Day Lewis version of Last Of The Mohicans (great man movie by the way).

The thing is 6'x4.5' and cool in ever way something can be cool. I got it from a friend who worked at a theater way back when and had it professionally framed and had it on the wall of my barracks room/dorm room/apartment/etc for years. Marriage ended all of that, sadly.

It wasn't until the advent of my man cave that it again allowed all who seek it's glory to bask in the awesome.

A man cave is where you find it. The total absense of pink colors is a sign that you are in one. Libraries with dark judge's panelling are the best you can do in the heated living space. Outdoors, the wooded areas and the golf courses are good substitutes for male seclusion areas.The entire Blue Ridge Mountains can be seen as one big male seclusion area as well.

Scott M it sounds like the 3rd definition might be most appropriate to you...see Titus for more assistance with this.

I have no such thing and don't seek one, the plasma, media centre, PC for games and console are all in the main section of the house next to the kitchen and next to the patio with BBQ, I don't need any sanctuary from my life!

There's nothing remotely gay about it. I collect the theater posters for movies I find exceptional. The LOTM is just the biggest in size and, frankly, a very cool picture of a dude that's about to tomahawk your forehead without thinking twice.

As a gamer, if your stuff is right out in the main part of the house, I'm guessing the sewing room owner clamps down on your volume in direct proportion to the lateness of the hour. That's the main reason I put mine in the furthest, deepest corner of the house away from the nearest bedroom. The sound system on the comp goes to 11...

My husband would like one, but our house is too small, so we compromised. I put my sewing table in the home office, he got a widescreen TV for our living room so big it makes me want a puke. We tend to resolve things by wheeling-and-dealing, so that works for us.

A lady I used to work with said that her husband's man cave saved her marriage.

There's a local radio station hosting a contest where the man cave is the prize. I drive by the billboard every day on the way home. WIN A MAN CAVE. It always kind of pisses me off though. I'd wig out if there were sections of my house that were "off limits" to me or where I had no say on what went in there. Then again, I don't decorate the main house in chintz cabbage roses.

It's a kid's book called Daddies Are For Catching Fireflies. There's a companion book called Mommies Are For Counting Stars. My self-proclaimed liberal and feminist sister-in-law sent them to my daughter when she was three. Afterward, when I confronted her about it, she said she did it because she thought it was hysterical.

The two books show various gender-neutral activities that parents do with kids.

Except the dad.

The dad sucks.

Know how I know?

Because right in the middle of the daddy book, there's a picture of a dad sitting a workbench working on a bike with the boy looking on. The caption says "Daddies are for fixing things". You turn the page and the same two are still sitting there, but now the dad looks frustrated and the kid is looking at the dad like he's an idiot. The bike remains in pieces. The caption says "But sometimes daddy can't fix things"

There is not one line in the Mommy book about something she can't do...

My two areas aren't off limits to my wife at all...she is, however, heavily incentivised not to bug me when I'm in either place. Countering that, though, is the fact that I do take the kids along with me, especially on weekends.

..and to echo D-Day: Man-caves, in houses, mean the house is too big. If you want to get away from everyone, even in a small house, it's pretty easy to do it. You have a specific room where you get away from people? Wasted space.

This whole place is a man cave and has been described as such. But the area that best conforms to defn. 1 is the ammo reloading area. There, surrounded by reloading presses, cans of powder and shelves bearing boxes of dies, primers, bullets and brass; I quietly prepare for....the future.

Decorations are few; maybe a ballistics chart or Sierra bullet poster. The walls are concrete grey. But books (load handbooks) are many and constantly referenced.

It's peaceful there. Every guy needs a place like it. The only sound is that of passing traffic and that of the press sizing another cartridge case or seating a bullet.

Tried to automate the area once. Went to progressive presses that created a loaded round with every pull of the handle. No good. Ran me ragged keeping them fed (if working) or fixed (if not)....and then there was the bad ammo. Too feminine in character. Got rid of 'em. Now...peace...quiet...good ammo at my own pace. Perfect!

My husband's man cave is an extra garage out through the woods and by the pond, with an old woodstove, a workbench, tools, a tractor, gardening stuff, relics and artifacts from his life before wife-and-two-daughters, a table he made just for playing poker with "the boys," fishing rods, empty beer bottles. I used to resent his special place a little, but now I believe it is important for his mental health and our marriage. But I would like a little writing and daydreaming treehouse of my own. (See Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own.)

Man cave essentials: a good bathroom exhaust fan, one that gets rid of 150 cfm and makes less noise than a refridgerator. So you can smoke a big cigar while you read without bothering the rest of the house. And a delayed shut-off switch, to clear the room after you leave.

Man-caves, in houses, mean the house is too big. If you want to get away from everyone, even in a small house, it's pretty easy to do it. You have a specific room where you get away from people? Wasted space.

That's ridiculous. For one thing, most "man-caves" utilize space that would otherwise be unused or underused - garages, attics, and basements are by far the most common. Second, it's not just about solitude - the whole point of an individual space is to have a place that is uncompromisingly personal. Many men are pressured by their wives or girlfriends into having little or no say about the appearance of their homes. Even at best, everything is a compromise. For whatever reason, there seems to be great psychological comfort in having a space that is the opposite - where nothing in it needs any justification for its existence other than that you want it.

Personally, I hope someday to have a garage just like Walt Kowalski's.

No man-cave, but I have a library. Deep red, every wall lined with book shelves, a large wooden table which sets my computer. My wife has a chaise so she can recline and read while I work, kill things on the computer, or read myself.

She has a workshop downstairs with her computer, her CNC laser, and the various other appurtenances of her work.

Hey, I didn't know that the rest of the house was supposed to be under my control...

We have a sort of man cave. Men hang out in it on Thursday night to watch movies, so I guess it's a man cave. It's not off limits to anyone, but no one hangs out in it. It is The System room, it is in the basement, and it is for watching movies.

There's a gym down there too. We both use it, but he's the only one who uses all of the equipment, and he selected its decor (more movie posters).

I have a space for being by myself and thinking. It's called the shower.

Scott, I realized early on that he needed space. A LOT of space. He's got more computer and radio junk and at least if he's got a room it can all be *in* it. At our house in CA he had 18' x 13'. Here he's got a 10x10 room but it's not big enough and half of my son's bedroom is storage for overflow.

And he wants a work shop, finish off the garage... and that's great. He should have one.

The lady I know with the man cave actually installed a lock on the door - no wife or kids allowed. I used to stay out of our home office as a personal preference, because my husband's multi-computer and multi-monitor game systems creeped over every available surface. He moved it out to the more public space in our house so we would just be around each other more. I guess what bugs me about the whole "man cave" idea is that we have so little time together as a family. This way we still get to do our own things, but when we're physically together we both get to hear the funny things the kid says/does, stuff like that.

As for the space issue - it's kind of a net bonus. I think it's good for kids to grow up a little bit on top of each other, just so they learn to deal with people.

Men have absolutely no interest in invading a woman's spaceDepending on what you mean by "woman's space", EVERY man does AND does not, depending on his taste. The man who wants to invade one space doesn't care about the other.

Or I've never spent years unable to close the bathroom door when I pee in case the toddler tries to kill the baby just when nature calls.

Bah! HE always could shut the door.

Maybe when the kids are gone there can be a space that is *mine*. That would be lovely.

As for decorating the house... I figure that whoever does most of the housework ought to get to have things the way he or she wants. If it's a joint effort then it can be a joint effort. Having to clean around someone else's junk is unfair. EVEN SO the public areas are not "her space." They just aren't.

My father repossesed two chairs my mother had bought that he'd given me, simply because my step-mother wanted them in a house she hadn't been in for a year. I'll grant she isn't a woman, she's a female dog.

Titus has a man cave, it's called a bathroom. That's where he shits, looks at his shit, plays with his shit, eats his shit, and then comments on this blog about his shit. Jeremy will then emerge, and talk shit.

Why would I want my wife to be more like me? One Age Of Conan account is enough. Besides...nobody wants to be instaganked by their wife's toon.

Come to think of it, marriage itself is like living in a constant pvp environment. What I don't have, unfortunately, are wife aggro resists. She's got all the debuffs

Ha ha...I would love it if my husband would play WoW with me!!! I would totally kick his ass, when we weren't double teaming and ganking unsuspecting noobies. PvP rocks.

His man cave is the workshop. A 1400 sq ft two story building. The bottom is for his work stuff, plumbing supplies, tools etc. The second story is his office cave. Pictures of hot rods all over the walls, posters and of course John Wayne and lots of memoribilia from his entire life. A drafting table, and wet bar. I hooked the computer up for him (I'm the techie guru in the family) so he can connect to the wireless DSL in the house and downloaded all kinds of tunes and loaded the Itunes library with about 4000 songs that plays through really good wireless speakers with great sub woofers and bass sounds. Nice futon couch and coffee tables. The only thing he is missing is a little fridge so he doesn't have to haul ice for the scotch upstairs from the freezer downstairs. (Man up its just a few stairs)

It is realy nice up there, however his secret strategy to keep me from wanting to spend time is....don't clean it and let the dead spiders and dead flies pile up in the window sills and in the corners. Ewwwwww.

The Temple is downstairs in the basement, right off the washing machine/dryer space. 10'x14', with a closet.

The Duke looks down over the main loading bench where the Dillon 650 and the Herters double ram reloading presses live. Uncle Abe's last Brady Portrait is on another wall. Chesty looks sweetly down over my case tumbler.

The gun safe lives in the closet. There's not room (is there ever?) for all the guns, so the bulk of the military surplus bolties live on a rack on the wall opposite the presses. The rest of them are stacked neatly next to the safe, in the closet, except for the carbines in our vehicles and the pistol in the safe upstairs.

There are eight scale plastic models in their boxes just waiting to be built, up on the bookshelf right by the door. The JU-88 is about eighty percent complete... and has been so for the better part of a decade. The box full of leather working tools is beneath them, and the model rocketry launch set is below that. Four shelf feet worth of firearms tech manuals and some classics - Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, Patton, Guderian, Dayan...and on the floor beneath the bookshelves there is an old NATO mortar projectile shipping case full of paper targets and empty cartridge boxes. My two range bags live on top of it.

Reloading components in plastic tubs for... jeez, eight different calibers and 12 gauge under the loading benches. The short bench, "El"ed off the one with the presses, is covered in outdoor carpet and is where I clean and tinker with the different members of the collection. I put a marble slab down there if I need to do leather crafting.

I have my grandfather's steel gold pan in there, with grandma's handwritten note explaining how granpa and Zane Grey spent some time working gravel on the Snake River.